Daughter of Norwalk resident killed on Sept. 11 reflects on death of bin Laden

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NORWALK

By ROBERT KOCH

Hour Staff Writer

Ashley Gilligan, whose father, a Norwalk resident, perished in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attack against the World Trade Center, considered going to Ground Zero late Sunday night after learning that terrorist leader Osama bin Laden had been killed.

She stayed home but got little sleep.

"I didn't sleep last night. (Bin Laden) is gone but it's not going to bring my father back. I don't think I'll ever get over what happened to my dad but I've learned to cope with it," Gilligan said. "I'm excited that (bin Laden) is gone and he's been taken off the face of the earth, but I'm still sad because I still won't have my father back."

Her father, Ronald Gilligan, worked for Cantor Fitzgerald at the Trade Center. He was 43 years old.

U.S. Special Forces killed bin Laden, mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, in a suburb of Islamabad, Pakistan. President Barack Obama announced his death late Sunday evening.

On Monday, millions of Americans reflected on the death of bin Laden, whose terrorist network Al-Qaeda planned and executed the attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people, including 14 Norwalk residents.

Kathryn A. Hebert, administrative services manager for the city of Norwalk, lost her brother, Adam J. Lewis, in the attack against the Trade Center. He worked as a trader on the 89th floor of the Second Tower. He was 36 years old. When Hebert heard that the terrorist leader had been killed, images of the South Tower collapsing flashed again in her mind.

"I'm glad that (bin Laden) is dead. I'm glad that they found him finally," Hebert said. But "there's still people that follow his edicts, so I still think we need to be smart about it and not rest on our laurels."

A number of people visited Connecticut's 9-11 Memorial at Sherwood Island State Park in Westport, where small American flags were posted in the ground near a large memorial stone that reads, "The citizens of Connecticut dedicate this living memorial to the thousands of innocent lives lost on September 11, 2001, and to the families who loved them."

Father Jason Smith, a clergyman from White Plains, N.Y., said he frequently visits Sherwood Island State Park and other parks on his days off work, but added that he'd never seen the memorial before.

"I was looking at each one of the (names) here. Every single one of these families is somebody who has loved ones," Smith said. "So I'm sure in a certain sense (bin Laden's death) is some kind of closure. But the firefighters were saying (on the radio) that it really wasn't a closure for them, because nobody can bring their loved ones back."

At Exit 18 in Westport, Chris McCormick of Mount Vernon, N.Y., attached a new and brightly-colored American flag to the fence along the bridge over Interstate 95. McCormick and others typically replace the flags atop bridges along Interstate 95 on the annual anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. This year, they came out early to replace the worn flags.

The effort didn't go unrecognized Monday.

"It was hard to do the flags because of the amount of people honking horns, which is reminiscent of years past where there was so much fervor and patriotism," McCormick said. "So it was good to see that."